Alice and Sparkle

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The children's book covered in The Washington Post, TIME Magazine, Le Figaro, NBC News, and media worldwide. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile.

That issue has taken the art and entertainment world by storm this month, with the sudden speed, ease, and efficiency of creating works with AI sending artists into an existential crisis. Best summed up by Guillermo del Toro — on the press circuit for his soulful stop-motion adaptation of Pinocchio — he said he’s “not interested in art made by machines and the extrapolation of information.” Reshi said that he has received death threats and messages encouraging self-harm. “If we can’t have discourse without being civil, then we’re not going to make progress,” he said. He added that the strength of the reaction had made him think more about the issues at hand. “It’ll make me do more homework, for sure,” he said. “I want to do the right thing. I want to help support the artists if I can.” This is a story about a young girl named Alice who discovers the magic of artificial intelligence. She creates her own AI, named Sparkle, and together they go on adventures and use their combined knowledge to make the world a better place.There are serious, incredibly valid concerns from artists and writers about all this technology. Their emotional responses are fair, we should listen and instead should ask: To the creators of these tools at OpenAI & MidJourney: how do we ensure protections for artists / train models on consent? Their talent, skill, hard work to get there needs to be respected." I spent the weekend playing with ChatGPT, MidJourney, and other AI tools… and by combining all of them, published a children’s book co-written and illustrated by AI! Reshi, a product design manager from the San Francisco Bay Area, gathered illustrations from Midjourney, a text-to-image AI tool that launched this summer, and took story elements from a conversation he had with the AI-powered ChatGPT about a young girl named Alice. “Anyone can use these tools,” Reshi tells TIME. “It’s easily and readily accessible, and it’s not hard to use either.” The story explores the incredible abilities of AI and the importance of using them for good. It is a tale of friendship and exploration, filled with magic and wonder.” Overall, he’s seen the experience as a learning one — and a chastening one. “I am grateful that it’s publicized a very critical debate and discussion that’s to be had,” he said. “I’m honestly just saddened by how that debate has played out. The hateful rhetoric and the abuse is really not fun to read."

I haven’t actually read this so I’m not going to rate it, I just read an article about it, but I find it quite interesting. You see Ammaar Reshi didn’t actually write it (even though his name is on the cover) and he didn’t illustrate it. The real “artists” behind it are ChatGTP (the writer) and Midjourney (the illustrator). Reshi just asked these AIs for this kind of story, and these kinds of illustrations.With AI and machine learning tools used in its writing and illustration, Alice and Sparkle is said to be the first book of its kind to do so. Not only that, but the entire story’s plot also centres around the young protagonist creating her own AI companion. One critic is Anupa Roper, a children’s book author based in the UK, who said she had a “sinking feeling in the pit of [her] stomach,” when she saw Reshi’s tweet. “I’m thinking, Is it really that easy to create something that I had to pour my heart and soul into?" Roper said. Alice and Sparkle is a children's story at heart that hopes to inspire children, encourage their curiosity and learning, in one of the most technologically exciting moments in our lifetime.

So shouldn’t ChatGTP and Midjourney have had their names on the cover? Perhaps, and perhaps not. Perhaps one should look at this like a ghost written work. Ghost writers get paid for the work, but don’t get credit. Still that doesn’t cover it either? Reshi told the world ChatGTP and Midjourney wrote and illustrated this book. Not much “ghost” about that, and they didn’t even get paid. Art Shift: The artstyle ranges from the chibi-inspired style on the cover to a more realistic look .This isn't the first time that AI-generated work has caused controversy. An AI image won a contest earlier this year, much to the ire of some artists (via CNN). Criticism usually centers around two arguments: that the creator did not create anything themselves since the AI did the work, and that AI art is a form of theft because it is trained on the original artwork of other creators. First, Reshi used ChatGPT to come up with a tale about Alice, a young girl who wants to learn about the world of tech, and Sparkle, a cutesy robot who helps her. “That gave me a base of a story,” Reshi said. “It was OK. It had its issues, of course. So then I started tweaking it.” This book was also co-created using AI tools to both aid in writing and illustration and is the first of its kind to do so. Good or bad as this book may be, it poses some interesting ethical questions which I really don’t know the answers to. I haven’t really seen a good answer from anyone how we are supposed to deal with these new kind of “artists”, but I suppose they are here to stay. Alice and Sparkle is a children's picture book about a young girl named Alice who creates an artificially intelligent robot named Sparkle. The two go on an adventure where they learn about both the potential benefits and dangers of artificial intelligence.

Ammaar Reshi, 28, has been fascinated by technology since he was a child. “I was always curious, and my dad let me play with his computer when I was 5 years old,” he said. He grew up in Pakistan before his family moved to the UK, where Reshi studied computer science in London. A job at Palantir Technologies led Reshi to Palo Alto, California, and since 2020 he’s worked at fintech company Brex, where he’s now a design manager.Reshi is aware of the controversy that his book caused and discussed the risks of AI-generated content: When a raft of generative AI tools started to hit the market over the last few months, Reshi began tinkering with them. Earlier this month, he had the idea to make a book for his best friends’ kid, who was born this year, using AI. “I said I was going to take a weekend to try to put this out there,” he recalled. This is a story about a young girl named Alice who discovers the magic of artificial intelligence. She creates her own AI, named Sparkle, and together they go on adventures and use their combined knowledge to make the world a better place. The story explores the incredible abilities of AI and the importance of using them for good. It is a tale of friendship and exploration, filled with magic and wonder. Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The creation of the book was meant to put a spotlight on the kind of storytelling that can be done with AI, and the plot of the book is about the good and bad that can be done with AI.